Maldives: resort vs local island

We’ve tried them both: the local island and the resort in the Maldives, and price aside, although the resort life is a very comfortable luxurious one, if I am to go back again, I would choose a local island, and Thoddoo has been particularly amazing.

Why?

The most beautiful alley of Thoddoo with big palm trees, across plantations towards the sunset beach.

It’s way cheaper, even 6-7x cheaper. Accommodation, food and especially trips, which are the highlight of your Maldivian trip, to go see as much marine life as you can, because it is amazing. You should go on a trip at least once a day, to snorkel to different reefs, see manta rays, eagle rays, sting rays, turtles, nurse sharks, black tip sharks or even whale sharks. This is the highlight of Maldives.

T h e m a r i n e l i f e.

It’s slightly bigger, you can enjoy some nice walks across the palm trees, especially the road towards the sunset viewpoint which is perfect on a bike.

You can have a more authentic experience. On Thoddoo, which is island focused on agriculture, we’ve seen a lot of fruit and vegetable plantations and people working the land.

Prices

Accommodation

This was booked pretty last minute, about 2 weeks before. Note that if you book earlier, you can find better prices:

Resort: We stayed at Villa Nautica, where we had full board (no drinks) it was 655eur/night, of course this can vary. We choose them, because it was close to the airport, had good reviews, had a good size with trees, so you can walk around and overall looked really good. One thing to note, is that they cleaned the room twice a day, and refilled the water bottles (1.5l), which showed the extra care for the $$$ you are paying.
Local Island: We stayed at Athiri Veli, where we paid 130eur/night (we paid 650eur/5 nights just in comparison with the resort costs)

Transfer

Resort: Even if the resort was 10minutes by both from the airport, it still costs us 183$/pers/both ways.
Thoddoo: although the distance was quite longer than the resort and it took us 1h by speedboat, the cost was 35$/pers/both ways.

Food

Resort: Full board included, with drinks at breakfast only, and unlimited water, both at lunch/dinner and in the room. They also had some a-la-carte restaurants, where prices would range from 25-60$/1 meal, and 1 glass of wine or 1 cocktail I believe was around 10-20$.
Thoddoo: ranges from 10-15$/pers for 1 meal+1 drink.

Rentals

Mask + snorkel + fins rental:

Resort: 14$/day
Thoddoo: free from accommodation, but not in the best shape or the right size

Canoe: same price for both Thoddoo and Resort: 20$/h for 2 person-canoe.

Trips

Resort: Turtle snorkeling+stingray snorkeling+sand bank trip - 219$/pers/3h; Nurse snark+stingray snorkeling+uninhabited island=198$/pers/6h; Dolphin trip: 95$/pers/1h
Thoddoo: Manta rays+nurse sharks snorkeling+sand bank trip - 75$/pers/5h; Dolphin trip: 40$/trip (we ended up paying 120$/2 person and we were alone); Reef snorkeling: 25$/pers for near the island, and we booked a second one for a nearby island with 100$/2 person/private.

Overall: it can be from 2-3 even 4 times more expensive at the resort, and since this is the highlight of Maldives for me, I definitely recommend staying mostly in a local island.

Overall

I recommend both experiences, if you can, then I would recommend 2-3 nights at the resort, but the rest of the time, I encourage you to book a hotel in a local island, as besides the big bucks you pay at the resort, you also have to pay a lot more money on the trips, so it’s not really worth it doing trips from resorts. What we enjoyed in the resort, was the luxury, insta worthy stay, and also they had a variety of water sports you could choose from, and we ended up booking a SUP board.